Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

Someone just reviewed about giving Harry the inevitable Dobby power-up, I genuinely cackled to myself... Too soon?

Anyway, next chapter!

Chapter 63

Dean's clock was wrong. The muggle-made device had given out again, its batteries warped by the magic around them. Dean would have to get Hermione to come and fix it for him again.

The clock face told him it was still twenty six minutes past two, just as it had before double transfiguration with their new interim headmistress. Harry had little doubt that Dumbledore would be returning the moment Fudge finally slipped from power. His Tempus Charm revealed that it was really five minutes to five, and full time he left.

The ritual had not taken as long to recover from as he had feared; it had not even taken as long as he hoped. Within a day he had been physically fully recovered, and only caution had kept him from leaving straight away.

Harry was still not entirely sure exactly how his body had been changed by the ritual to become more resilient. Salazar had offered a vague explanation that had boiled down to the regenerative properties of salamanders' blood being mimicked by the magic of the ritual and incorporated into his own blood and he seemed to be right.

Harry had, tentatively at first, but then more confidently, lightly cut thin lines across his forearm to watch them heal. No matter how deep he drove the knife the wounds slowly faded without a scar, though it took close to an hour for the very deepest to vanish completely. The flesh around the injury would swell red as if bruised, then grow feverishly warm until the wound had healed and the skin had crept back. It was almost fascinating to watch.

He knew that salamander's could grow limbs back if they lost them, but he had no desire to test his capabilities so drastically. The advanced healing he had gained was a blessing that could prove far more useful than the increased strength he had been attempting to gain.

Rooting around in his trunk for a clean pair of socks his fingers brushed something warm, something that, like the seat of a lost tooth drew the tip of the tongue, needed to be touched, caressed and held.

It chittered jubilantly as he trailed the tip of his forefinger along the curving edge, growing warmer still, rejoicing wordlessly in his closeness.

Such a strange thing, but what secrets it must hold.

The circlet fitted the description of Ravenclaw's Lost Diadem, tarnished though it was, but it did not behave as he expected it to. It certainly didn't appear to be a shining font of knowledge and wisdom, but then the sorting hat was hardly what he'd expected either.

Harry weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. The diadem was supposed to increase the intelligence of the wearer, something that might prove invaluable to him in the future. Leaving it behind felt rather imprudent.

Salazar will know whether it is the genuine article, he decided, slipping the tiara into his pocket alongside the Marauder's Map.

He pulled the hangings across his bed, covering them with the usual wards to keep anyone too nosy from discovering anything inconvenient. Tonight he needed to give nobody a reason to think he might be elsewhere.

Calmly he strolled out of the dormitory, keeping one eye on the map he had half-concealed in his pocket. The quidditch team was on their way to practice, they wouldn't be returning until late, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Hermione and a handful of other Gryffindors were not present on the map, which meant they were either in the Chamber of Secrets, something Harry suspected to be unlikely, or they were holding another DA meeting in the Room of Requirement.

The common room was much emptier than usual. Without Umbridge's tyrannical enforcement of her decrees there was nothing to keep the students from the corridors anymore, and after being pent up for so long everyone had made the most of the opportunities.

Nobody looked up to see him leave, but he wasn't particularly concerned. He was no longer unpopular, the students seemed to be only capable of hating one figure at a time, and Umbridge had claimed his pedestal. Now he was simply ignored. They did not forget what they had read about him, but they were no longer so sure it was true, so they stepped back and waited to see what the truth would be.

Harry knew he would be innocent, not because he was, but because the victor would write what was true, and Fudge had lost, the Ministry just hadn't told everyone yet.

Strolling casually towards Myrtle's Bathroom he stroked the smooth, silver surface of the diadem in his pocket. Harry wasn't going to be parted from this precious artefact. He was barely able to resist the desire to wear the tiara and see what secrets Rowena Ravenclaw had entrusted it with. Were he not cautious enough to know to ask Slytherin to verify that this was the real tiara he would already have it upon his head.

As if in response to the idea the circlet twittered quietly in his pocket, and the metal flared warmer under his fingertips.

He passed a group of Hufflepuff first years, the same group he had once watched Katie terrorise by transfiguring their books into giant bats. They no longer shrank away from him, though they did glance at him warily as he passed and pull their bags closed.

He blamed Katie for that reaction.

Striding into the unused girl's bathroom he swept the water-covered floor clean with his wand, banishing the water out of his path to splash against the wall.

'Open,' he murmured in sibilant parseltongue. In his pocket the diadem chittered excitedly once more.

Harry walked progressively slower down into the chamber. He didn't have much time to spare before he left to go to Grimmauld Place, it seemed almost wasteful to spend it asking questions of Salazar when he could be making use of the diadem instead.

Maybe it's time to improvise, he mused, uncertain, his fingers twitching towards the diadem. Surely I would know if it was the real one the moment I wore it.

He paused at the bridge, pulling the circlet from his pocket and balancing it upon his palms. All the knowledge, all the wisdom he might have at his fingertips, did it matter how he found it, was that reward not worth the risk. He doubted Rowena Ravenclaw would have made it dangerous to wear.

His fingers curled around the circlet, tightening in anticipation as he raised it towards his head.

Better safe than sorry, he decided, changing his mind and striding into the study.

'Do you recognise this?' Harry demanded, holding the tiara out for Salazar to see.

'Where did you find that?' Slytherin hissed in surprise. 'It was lost.'

'So it is the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw?'

'Without a doubt,' Salazar marvelled. 'We all thought it lost for good after Helena foolishly stole it and fled. Rowena allowed a young man who wanted to win her favour, possibly with an eye to courting Helena, to go after her to bring back her beloved daughter and the diadem, but they never returned. She never told us exactly what happened and died soon after so we could not retrieve it.'

'I found it in the Room of Requirement,' Harry answered. It didn't really seem to matter that he'd retrieved it indirectly via Umbridge in the Forbidden Forest, or that he had noticed it when he performed the Human-Revealing Charm and it showed up.

'I suppose it makes sense for the artefact to be linked to the room in some way,' Slytherin agreed. 'Rowena was very attached to it, she intended to leave it to advise her daughter and her future family members.'

'How does it work?' Harry asked, turning the circlet over in his hands.

'You wear it,' the painting replied flatly. 'It's a tiara, what were you expecting?'

'I thought it might have a phrase to activate it,' Harry defended.

'Keep it in the chamber,' Salazar advised, 'if we ever have need of it then you'll know where to find it.'

'I'm going to use it to think through the plan one last time,' Harry decided, softly stroking the circlet's edge. Salazar had said it was the genuine article, so it must be safe.

Gently he placed the diadem upon his head, enjoying the brief flare of warmth that rose from it, and smiling as it chittered ecstatically. He supposed he would be overjoyed to be used if he'd been lost for so long.

'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure,' a soft, male voice murmured quietly, as if into his ear. It sounded strangely familiar, an echo of someone he had somehow already heard. 'Such a neat little saying, but we know it isn't true, don't we,' the voice laughed, a cold, sinister chuckle that Harry recognised all too well.

'We know there is only power,' Voldemort's voice whispered gleefully.

Harry tore the tiara from his head, sending it skittering across the floor screeching and screaming furiously.

'What are you doing?!' Slytherin exclaimed.

'It has Riddle's voice,' Harry told him distantly, sickened by how easily it had lured him to into wearing it. 'It showed up when I cast the Homenum Revelio,' he murmured, cold horror flooding his veins. He knew what that meant, the charm was derived from soul magic, it only revealed things that had human souls, and yet somehow it hadn't seemed to register with him.

'Why did you not say?!' The painting exploded. 'You knew it was a horcrux, you saw it has a soul!'

'It didn't seem important,' Harry replied, horrified. 'I just wanted to wear it, to make use of its wisdom. If I hadn't recognised his voice…' He trailed off fearfully, knowing that he would have listened to every word it said, accepted its malicious whispering as wisdom, just as Umbridge must have done.

'Destroy it,' Salazar spat.

Harry didn't dare touch it again, his skin crawled at the very idea, and his stomach twisted at the way he had caressed the circlet that harboured a piece of Riddle's shattered soul. Instead of reaching for it he conjured a long, thin piece of metal and flicked the tiara out into the door way, where his magic wouldn't harm the study, or its enchantments.

Flicking his wand into his palm he directed a stream of fiendfyre as thick as his arm at the diadem, smiling vengefully when it screamed and holding the flames over it until the sound stopped.

I won't be used, he declared to himself. Not by Dumbledore, not by Voldemort or any of the pieces of his soul, not by anyone.

Dispelling the hungry flames before they consumed the floor of the chamber he tentatively nudged the smoking tiara with his toe. The blackened, cracked circlet neither moved nor chittered, but a thick, inky-looking cloud of smoke belched forth from the cracks and dissipated soundlessly.

'Homenum revelio,' he murmured, just to be sure.

Nothing appeared, the faint red glow that he remembered seeing in the forest before was no longer evident and he sighed with relief.

'It's destroyed,' he told his ancestor.

'Good,' the portrait gritted. 'I've never seen such a dangerously insidious piece of magic, and for him to use something like Rowena's Diadem.' Slytherin's face darkened, closing his eyes as he frowned. 'That circlet was precious to her, as cherished as this was to me, it would have torn her heart to see it used so.' The painting slipped a hand under the serpent that encircled his shoulders and pulled out a gleaming, silver locket adorned with his simple, single elegant initial.

'Your locket,' Harry realised, remembering the tale Salazar had told him.

'I sacrificed the real one for my blood magic,' he said sadly. 'It's destruction created an ache that I never forgot in all the time I lived. Rowena would be heartbroken to know what became of her diadem. Few of the things we deemed precious survived,' he murmured morosely, clenching his fist around the locket. 'That's why blood is important,' he continued sternly, 'little else of you lasts long after your death but your bloodline.'

'I don't know of any others who claim to be descended from your friends,' Harry told him quietly.

'I feared it would be so,' Salazar intimated, 'Godric was too set on saving other people to ever do something so selfish as follow his own heart, Rowena had only one daughter, and it seems my only two descendants are doing their best to kill each other. Soon there will be nothing left of us but a divided school, Godric's scruffy hat, that ridiculous sword and two forgotten, empty rooms.'

'What about Helga?' Harry asked, hoping to cheer the portrait up.

'She had family,' Slytherin commented a little more hopefully, 'but I would imagine a link to any of us would be known and claimed. You would have heard if it existed.' He looked thoughtful for a moment, tucking the locket back into his robes. 'Perhaps some of her work survives, the plants she created, the potions, spells, or even that useless cup.'

He chuckled suddenly, his humour returning, and the unexpected noise made Harry start and he shifted to cover his surprise.

'She convinced Rowena to spend hours helping her enchant a cup to absorb the properties of her phoenix's tears so that anything that was drunk from the cup would be imbued with their power. Of course the silly woman forgot that phoenix tears don't actually do anything if you drink them they have to be placed directly onto the injury to heal it. I suppose if you burnt your mouth while eating then drinking something from the cup might work,' Salazar grinned. 'It was a wonderful piece of magic, Rowena and I were so excited about its potential, then she told us what substance she'd chosen to imbue the cup with and we were so let down. Only Helga could have made such a mistake,' Slytherin mused happily, 'or Godric, but he would have chosen the perfect substance, and then accidentally enchanted the cup to spew it out the bottom onto your lap when you tried to drink from it.'

'What mistake would you or Rowena have made?' Harry asked, smiling at the founder's cheer.

'Rowena would have lost the thing,' Salazar snorted. 'I, well,' his face fell again, 'if it was really important to me I would have probably ended up sacrificing it for something I didn't really need.'

A long, sad silence passed between the two of them.

'You should go,' Slytherin said at last. 'You came here to go to get the Prophecy, not to listen to me reminisce about our flaws, many though they were.'

'They make you seem human,' Harry told him honestly, 'without them you would be just as distant and unreachable as the other names that have outlived the faces they were once associated with.'

'That sounded wise, like something I would say,' Salazar smirked.

'Wisdom can be found in the strangest of places,' Harry retorted dryly.

'That definitely sounds like me,' the painting laughed. 'Now go, go and find out what's so important about this prophecy that both Dumbledore and Voldemort will sacrifice lives for it.'

'I will,' Harry agreed, excitement welling up again after the horror and sorrow of the diadem had passed. He kicked the marred circlet into the pool, where it sank into the black water and out of sight. It would remain lost as far as the rest of the world was concerned, and certainly as far as Voldemort was.

Disillusioning himself he pictured a shop he had only ever entered by mistake, then the world whirled, and he was standing, still invisible, on the edge of the fireplace in Borgin and Burke's.

Harry remembered accidentally flooing here the first time he had used the network, so he knew that this fireplace was linked to the network, and that he could travel from here to Grimmauld Place which must be connected for Sirius to recommend travelling by it. He suspected that the Fidelius Charm simply concealed it from the watching authorities and prevented anyone from arriving there unless they knew the secret of its location.

Taking a pinch of powder from a rather macabre, and hopefully fake hollowed out vase carved from a human skull he glanced around to check nobody was close enough to hear.

'Number twelve Grimmauld Place,' he commanded, making sure to enunciate the words clearly, and throwing the powder into the fire.

The flames flared green, then he stepped in, only to inhale a lungful of smoke and collapse out to sprawl across a cold, hard, stone floor.

He'd forgotten how much he hated travelling by floo, it was worse than portkeying, and much worse than apparating. Squeezing his eyes shut to suppress the dizziness he dragged himself upright on the wall, taking long, deep breaths. His Disillusionment Charm was gone.

Grimmauld Place was aptly named.

At some point, likely several decades ago, this would have been quite a handsome city house, but it seemed that since then it had been caked in dust, grime and worse. The attempts to clean the house had rather finished it off, whoever had scourgified the walls had stripped everything off, tattered wallpaper, rotting plaster and more had been scoured away to leave bare, rough stone.

Cosy, Harry grinned.

It was no wonder his godfather was going insane if he was trapped in here on his own all the time.

There was some sign of habitation. The sink was full of tins, soup tins from the look of it, clearly Sirius wasn't much of a cook, and a collection of dirty mugs occupied the side next to it. It was certainly better than rats, and whatever he'd survived on in Azkaban, but Harry couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. Dumbledore had imprisoned him in this dilapidated ruin, no doubt for the Greater Good again.

He drifted out of the kitchen into a narrow hall that must have once been quite grand, panelled and floored in expensive dark, hard woods. It was scratched, scraped and rotting now, decaying with the thick, musty scent of mildew.

The thick, velvet curtains to his left flew open and his wand was immediately, instinctively in his palm, the incantation for the bone splintering curse on the tip of his tongue.

It was just a portrait. A life-size, incredibly detailed, painting of a woman that clearly bore some reaction to Sirius. They had the same chin, nose and ears.

'You're not my blood-traitor son,' the portrait commented, surprised. Her face twisted out of its expression of ugly disdain into something that would have been handsome before age marred it. Harry didn't reply; he was busy deliberating whether or not to incinerate the woman. Paintings could travel between different frames if more than one picture of them existed, and he didn't need to be remembered here by anyone he couldn't trust.

'You look like you come from a good family,' the woman sniffed, 'good bone-structure, nice-eyes, what's a proper pure-blood doing in among the half-breeds and traitors my son consorts with?'

'I'm Harry,' he introduced himself, 'I'm afraid I don't have the pleasure of knowing your name?'

'Walburga Black,' the woman smiled, her face shedding several decades. 'Do you have a family name?'

'Slytherin,' Harry grinned, waiting for what doubtless be a great reaction.

'An honour,' Mrs Black dipped her head regally. 'I assume you aren't here to join my son's little group of muggle-lovers.'

'No,' Harry agreed. 'I have very different aims.' He hoped if he said the right things he might have found himself a useful spy, or at least convince her not to mention his presence to anyone inconvenient.

'Do you follow the Dark Lord?' Walburga Black inquired, 'my Regulus followed him, he was a proper pure-blood scion.'

'No,' Harry smirked, 'the Dark Lord has been unmasked. His real name is Tom Riddle, a muggle-raised, half-blooded wizard who doesn't even believe in blood purity.'

'He lied,' Walburga Black looked shocked, 'but my Regulus died for him.'

'So did many others,' Harry responded grimly, 'so will many more.'

The painting didn't say anything for a long while after that, just stared out at him in confusion. He didn't feel particularly sorry for her, Sirius' mother or not, her son had died for Voldemort, that made him a Death Eater, whether he went because he believed in pure-blood bigotry, or because he enjoyed torturing others mattered not. He had still set out with intent to cause harm, and no reason good enough to justify it, and that was what really made the difference. Regulus Black had earned his fate.

'Why are you here?' The painting asked quietly. 'You didn't come to rip apart a long-dead woman's world.'

'No,' he shook his head, 'I came to meet with Sirius.'

'So you are one of the blood-traitors,' Mrs Black sniffed, but without her previous venom.

'I do not care about blood purity,' Harry told her coldly, 'I respect power, and the intent with which it is wielded, whether you're muggle or carry a name as old as mine does not matter to me if you are my equal.'

'All powerful wizards are pure-bloods,' Walburga stated.

'Tell that to your Dark Lord,' Harry laughed, 'he's just a half-blood, remember.'

'I serve no half-blooded imposter,' she hissed furiously. 'That liar stole my Regulus from me and brought half a hundred old families and bloodlines to an end. He is no lord of mine.'

'He is a distant relative, as I'm sure you've realised.' Harry ignored the upwelling of distaste that came with acknowledging Riddle as any relation of his. It came with almost as much bile as acknowledging any relation to the Dursleys.

And you?' Mrs Black eyed him curiously. 'You never actually said. I assumed you're pure-blooded if you truly carry the Slytherin name, but I made the same mistake with Lord Voldemort.'

'I'm not sure,' Harry answered honestly. 'I don't know the exact boundaries, but I don't particularly care either. I'm stronger than most my age, pure-blooded or not.'

'Very likely a pure-blood by my estimation,' Walburga decided, as if that were the only estimation that mattered. 'You have the feel of a pure-blood, and the looks too. With a name like yours I can't imagine you'd be anything else.'

'I don't use that name except in particular company,' Harry told her firmly. Her insistence that he had to be pure of blood amused him. His father was probably pure-blooded, the Potters were an old family, but his mother was most decidedly not. He wasn't going to tell her differently, if she believed he was pure-blooded and liked him for it then that suited him just fine.

'Understandable,' Mrs Black scowled, 'there are many muggle-lovers who would like nothing more than to condemn us for being more than they are. We are not born equal, magic is in the blood, and our blood is oldest and purest of them all.'

'You are not going to convince me to adopt a pure-blood agenda,' he smiled wryly. 'I judge each individual on their own merit, no bias and fewer mistakes because of it.'

'A pity,' she sniffed. 'I had hoped you might knock some sense into my son before he completely ruins this family by selling us out to blood-traitors.'

'If your family comes to ruin it will be the work of Voldemort and Dumbledore,' Harry said curtly.

'It will be the work of my eldest son,' she disagreed vehemently. 'He is the last scion of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, he needs to find himself a suitable wife and an heir. Regulus would be married by now.'

'If only he wasn't dead,' Harry remarked dryly.

Why am I still talking to this painting? And where's Sirius?

'I don't suppose you know any eligible girls from good families?' Walburga asked, apparently not hearing Harry's snide comment.

'Not off the top of my head,' Harry laughed. He was definitely telling his godfather about this part of the conversation.

'Kreacher,' the portrait shrieked suddenly, making Harry start.

There was a loud crack and a hunched, withered house elf appeared next to Harry. It stared up at him with suspicious, narrowed, washed-out, pale blue eyes.

'Mistress called Kreacher,' the elf croaked bowing so low before the painting that the tips of his ears brushed the floor.

'This is Harry,' Walburga hesitated, then left the surname he had given out, 'he is from a very respectable family, you will treat him as he deserves, not like the other blood traitors my shameful son has brought into my home. Find the family records, search for any other possible male heirs of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, my son cannot be trusted to take his duties to the family seriously. He never has had any love for us.'

'Yes, mistress,' the elf grinned delightedly.

The curtains swept closed, but the elf did not leave. It remained staring up at Harry unsettlingly, clearly Kreacher was not completely convinced of his Mistress' judgment of him.

'From a respectable family Mistress says,' Kreacher muttered, 'but Kreacher knows that only nasty traitor Master's friends can come to Mistress' house. Blood traitors, filthy creatures and mud-bloods all of them. Mistress did not give Kreacher a name for this respectable family, maybe the stranger lied to Mistress, but Mistress gave Kreacher orders, and Kreacher will follow them.'

'Shut up, Kreacher, you've got a decade of cleaning to catch up with,' his godfather snapped, appearing at the other end of the hall. 'He's a miserable little house elf, malicious as the day I left this place and a whole lot less sane than I remember.'

'Yes, Master,' the elf bowed, though not half as low as he had to the painting. 'Nasty blood-traitor master, abandoning Mistress Black and Master Regulus,' he muttered as he left.

Sirius shot him a hot glare, and the elf slunk off up the stairs out of sight. They followed him at a slightly slower pace. Every step creaked, and there were more than a couple of dubious stains on some of them.

'I hate that elf,' he shook his head. 'The destruction of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is Kreacher's greatest fear, and he's been stuck here to watch it collapse with only that delightful picture of my mother for a decade. She's driven him insane.' His godfather grinned rather viciously at the idea. 'That's not quite fair, he's been a bit more coherent with his utterings since Christmas, perhaps having half the house tidied cheered him up a bit.'

'I spoke with your mother,' Harry smirked.

'I didn't hear any screeching,' Sirius frowned.

'She seemed convinced I was a pure-blood, and tried to ask me about eligible girls for you to marry and produce a male heir with.' Harry burst out laughing at the look of horror on his godfather's face.

'You do look the part, especially now you've filled out. She probably thought you were the first respectable wizard to visit since she died,' Sirius laughed loudly, clapping a hand across his shoulders. 'If she'd had her way I would have been married to someone like cousin Cissy, or, worse, my other cousin, Bella, actually,' he paled considerably, 'that might have really happened if I hadn't run away, my parents were second cousins. Fortunately I did and they went off to marry Malfoy and Lestrange instead. Anyone she considers a suitable match is likely wearing robes and a mask now.'

He made a mental note that Sirius seemed to be related to most of Voldemort's inner circle of Death Eater's through one form or another.

'I told her Voldemort was a half-blood,' Harry commented, 'she seemed quite upset about that.'

'She would be,' Sirius' frown darkened. 'She moulded my younger brother into the perfect pure-blood then sent him off to die serving that maniac. I hope the guilt tortures her until I find a way to get rid of that damn painting for good. Britain's better off without the ever-so-pure Black Family.'

'So have you really been stuck in here all this time on your own?' Harry asked, eager to change the subject. He'd had enough of talking about blood purity for one day.

'This isn't even the worst bit,' Sirius chuckled, 'follow me, we haven't cleaned the top floor yet, I'll show you what the whole place was like when I came back.'

Harry dutifully drifted up the stairs after him.

'I'm not always on my own, in the school holidays some of the Order members come here. This is the headquarters after all, my father had the whole place warded as extensively as possible and after Dumbledore cast the Fidelius Charm it became all but impossible for anyone to come here without invitation. Most of the time it is just me,' he admitted. 'You have no idea how much I've been looking forward to getting out of here.'

They passed what was presumably the second floor from the top for the scoured clean stone and bared wood suddenly vanished underneath several inches of decaying, grey plaster, tattered paper and tapestries.

'Beautiful, isn't it?'

'The whole place was like this?' Harry asked, angry that Dumbledore had forced his godfather to live somewhere like this for so long.

'Until the summer,' Sirius answered absently. 'I didn't really notice after Azkaban and living on the run, but Molly wasn't having any of it and started everyone cleaning the moment she arrived. Ron, Hermione and the other Weasleys helped a bit at Christmas, but the top floor has the library, my father's study and the attic. Nobody wants to use any of them, so I've had Kreacher start cleaning them.'

'He doesn't seem to have got very far,' Harry remarked. There was no sign that the house elf had even attempted to clean anything on this floor.

'I know,' Sirius shrugged. 'I was hoping there would be doxies, another boggart, or something that would finish him off, but sadly the horrible creature lingers on to irritate me.'

A loud rattle came from the room at the end of the corridor. It sounded like something was trying to get through a locked door, twisting the handle back and forth repeatedly.

'That's probably him now,' Sirius sighed. 'He's likely trying to save everything he can find that belonged to my family before cleaning. I'd better go and stop him before he manages to hide anything away again.'

The door at the end of the corridor was locked, but when Sirius pushed at it the frame was so rotten that the metal lock simply tore straight through the softened wood.

Harry's parents were standing on the other side of the desk, arms folded across their chests, faces twisted in anger and leaning against each other so that they seemed joined at the hip.

'You failed us,' James hissed at Sirius. 'You left our Harry to throw yourself in prison, and now you hide in here. You should be out fighting, we fought, Remus is fighting, even Peter fought for someone. You're a coward Black, a pitiful, terrified coward. You sicken us.' His mother said nothing, just stared at his godfather in terrible, cutting disappointment.

Then they started to change.

Harry's mother's hair darkened, slipping across her face to cover it as his father melted away into her side and they shrunk into the skeletal, cloaked form of a dementor. The cold, creeping chill slid across the room, and the dementor rose to hover over Sirius, pulling back its cowl to bare the terrible orifice it called a mouth.

His godfather was frozen, his hands trembling as he moaned. 'I escaped,' he whispered, pulling at his hair, 'I'm free, they're gone, they're gone, they're gone. I'm not a coward,' he yelled, swinging his fist at the dementor.

Harry pushed him out of the way, and he collapsed heavily to the floor, curling up into a shivering ball. Sirius hadn't realised it was just a boggart and couldn't really hurt them.

The dementor turned, twisting itself to face him and he found himself staring into identical eyes of his reflection, just as he had in the maze.

Harry flicked his wand into his palm, he knew a thousand ways to destroy a boggart, laughter was simply the least malicious, but he was curious to know what he feared most of all and the incantation caught on his teeth.

'We're free now,' the boggart whispered, a terrible, bright smile beneath eyes that burnt with righteousness. 'We're free from them all, free forever. We won't be used, not by Dumbledore, not by Riddle, not by those who professed to be our friends,' the smile spread disturbingly wide, 'and not by those who claimed to love us.'

It raised its crimson-smeared hand, and dangling from it's dripping fingers was a lock of bright, silver hair.

'Lacero.' The word slipped viciously past his lips and the purple spell shredded though the form of the reflection, obliterating one of his bright, green eyes and the shelving behind. Paper exploded across the room, floating fragments of parchment drifting around him, flurrying about himself and his mutilated, screaming reflection.

'Lacero,' he repeated, over and over again, until there was nothing left of the boggart but the fear it had shown him, an image he knew would haunt his nightmares to the time that something more terrible supplanted it.

Cursing the curiosity that had led him to wait and watch what form it would take, he slipped his wand away, and helped his godfather up from the floor from where he had collapsed after seeing the dementor form of the boggart. Sirius should recover quickly enough not to delay their departure to the Department of Mysteries, but if he didn't then Harry would have to go on alone. He couldn't afford to waste this chance to even the game up, or maybe even twist things in his favour. The Prophecy was too important. Sirius would understand.

AN: Please read and keep on reviewing, thanks to everyone who does! Department of Mysteries soon, I promise.